The Martian Chronicles is the only short story collection I’ve read. So something like that would be great. But I’m open to other kinds of recs too.
I want books with good enough prose tho. Bad or flat prose is a turn off for me.
You might like Steampunk Prime: A Vintage Steampunk Reader, edited by Mike Ashley.
By the way, the sad reality is that many of the good sci fi stories have flat prose. It’s just something you have to accept.
Just the one short story, not part off a collection as far as I’m aware of: https://www.libraryofshortstories.com/storiespdf/the-veldt.pdf (author is Ray Bradbury)
I like the short stories set in the Revelation Space universe by Alastair Reynolds. They tend to be a bit bleak and have elements of horror in them. A few of his stories became episodes of love death and robots so you can give the episodes a watch to see if his stories do it for you.